Florea (Gheorghe) Georgiana

Master 1st year, LLE

1. The principles of Universal Grammar are available in the second language acquisition. The text argues
that the second language acquisition is constrained by principles and parameters of Universal Grammar.
The hypotheses maintaining that second language grammars are constrained by universal principles are
contrasted with claims that Universal Grammar is not implicate, as a result, relevant empirical research is
presented from both sides of the debate.
2. The view is that uninterpretable features are difficult to identify and analyse in the L2 input due to
persistent, maturationally-based, L1 effects on adult L2 grammars. Uninterpretable features are subject to
critical period constraints and, as such, they are inaccessible to L2 learners. Uninterpretable formal
features, such as (subject, object) agreement, cause learnability problems even at advanced stages of
acquisition. The author does not see our linguistic faculties as having originated from any particular
selective pressure, but rather as a sort of fortuitous accident. He bases this view, among other things, on
studies which found that recursivity might be the only specifically human component of language.
According to the authors of these studies, recursivity originally developed not to help us communicate, but
rather to help us solve other problems connected, for example, with numerical quantification or social
relations, and humans did not become capable of complex language until recursivity was linked with the
other motor and perceptual abilities needed for this purpose.
3. The SLA assumes target abstract specification of properties at least in advanced L2 grammars and
views inaccurate performance as the result of processing difficulties or of the morphological component,
cannot in the case of the acceptability of resumptive pronouns account for the systematicity characterizing
non-target responses. Resumptive uses of agreement on the verb or clitic pronouns in the L1 are, therefore,
transferred as parametric options to the developing L2 grammar. In the absence of subjectverb agreement
on L2 verb forms and clitic pronouns, the learner imposes the resumptive option on English L2 pronouns
in questions, following a process of morphological misanalysis of these L2 items. L2 development
involves compensatory use of interpretable features, which appear to improve the non-target use of L2
pronouns. The interpretability features of animacy and discourse-linking are hypothesized to be involved
in the analysis of English pronouns by Greek L2 learners.
4. Resumptive uses of agreement on the verb or clitic pronouns in the L1 are, therefore, transferred as
parametric options to the developing L2 grammar. In the absence of subjectverb agreement on L2 verb
forms and clitic pronouns, the learner imposes the resumptive option on English L2 pronouns in questions,
following a process of morphological misanalysis of these L2 items. L2 development involves
compensatory use of interpretable features, like animacy or discourse-linking, which appear to improve
the non-target use of L2 pronouns.
5. The main results of the experiment from this study were:
a) learners performance in subject vs. object interrogatives;
b) animacy effects;
c) d-linking effects; and
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d) the presence of a complementizer in subject interrogatives.

6. L1 impacts are more grounded in subject interrogatives even at phases of L2 advancement, and present
in object interrogatives. This is according to the higher acceptability rate of resumptive pronouns in
subject position as well as the higher percentage of incorrect judgments in grammatical subject. There is a
lack of developmental change in both ungrammatical and grammatical subject extraction cases, whereas
there is a significantly different performance of the advanced learners from the NS group in these
experiments.
L2 data suggests that the abstract properties of subjectverb agreement in Greek are transferred to English
L2. Accordingly, subject pronouns can function resumptively in the Greek/English interlanguage.. Given
that subject agreement is absent from English verb forms, transfer of the L1 properties of subject
agreement to L2 subject wh-extraction necessitates a misanalysis of English pronouns as weak pronouns
which extends to object wh-extraction although not as strongly compared to subject extraction cases. The
L1 optionality in this case is regulated by a number of factors, e.g. level of embedding, heaviness of the
part of the clause that follows the extraction.
We could analyse the role of LF-interpretable and uninterpretable features in SLA in the wh-interrogatives
in L2 grammars. Uninterpretable formal features, such as (subject, object) agreement, cause learnability
problems even at advanced stages of acquisition.
Resumptive uses of agreement on the verb or clitic pronouns in the L1 are, therefore, transferred as
parametric options to the developing L2 grammar. In the absence of subjectverb agreement on L2 verb
forms and clitic pronouns, the learner imposes the resumptive option on English L2 pronouns in questions,
following a process of morphological misanalysis of these L2 items. L2 development involves
compensatory use of interpretable features, which appear to improve the non-target use of L2 pronouns.
Discourse interface would fail to detail ungrammatical instances of resumption in A chains. The
Interpretability Hypothesis can account for the non-target use of L2 pronouns in interrogative contexts as
well as for the selective improvement found in contexts where interpretable features are associated with
the wh-dependency.